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Monday, March 3, 2008

coming along

The four-panel peony piece is coming along, here's the latest step:

So far it looks like a cloudy day in flower-land... I'm thinking the background needs to be changed to a lighter, creamier color.

This is a difficult point to be at in a painting for me: I want to add more paint and detail to the flowers without making them too literal, too constrained. The puzzle is always how to keep working, how to focus the piece without losing the movement and spontaneity?

Sometimes I think the real work of painting happens on the palette -- it took me an hour to mix six colors the other day -- but then I find myself at the canvas like I'm on the high dive above the pool... don't think too much, just dive in!Auuughhhh!

2 comments:

Maybe you should project some video over it or something. Or make them into floor panels that you burst out of in front of an audience, wielding a squirt gun full of pigs blood that you squirt everyone with. That'd have a spontaneous feel, huh?... or just, um, continue as you were.